The Wallflower: Volume 1 – Lesson 1: My Fair Bishonen

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A rare flower of a series.

By N.S. Davidson

Being a wallflower has never been this delightful. If you're a fan of comical anime, shojo anime, beautifully animated anime, or all of the above, you'll have to get your hands on this. The manga version has been coming out for a while, and at last we're getting caught up with the anime adaptation.

The wallflower in the title is Sunako, a teenage girl who's so convinced of her ugliness she covers half her face with her bangs and won't look in the mirror. If you leave her alone, she'll stay in a black room with her horror movies and skulls. However, Sunako's aunt, a very adventurous and wealthy woman, decides it's time for a makeover. And she knows the guys to do it: four exceptionally beautiful young men who have been mooching off her and living in her mansion. If they turn Sunako into a proper lady, their living expenses are free. But if they fail, their rent skyrockets. So what happens when Sunako and the lovely boys meet? Every funny thing in the book, that's what. Flowers wilt when Sunako is around and the boys are terrified of her. But wait . . . maybe she has important attributes more vital than looks? And though she won't admit it, she likes the guys she's with, even if they are pretty wimpy. She constantly gets roaring nosebleeds around them (symbolic in anime and manga for extreme attraction) and painfully refers to them as creatures of light.

Because of the boys' good looks, and the whole theme of the story, this gets labeled as shojo (girl) anime. Some boys will avoid this genre at all costs, and that's really too bad. Anyone with a sense of humor ought to be able to enjoy The Wallflower . This is one of the funniest series to come out in a while, and if you don't check it out . . . you're missing a tremendous amount of laughs. Each episode has one bouncing joke after another and more than its fair share of fun, loveable, zany characters. The beautiful boys and the gothic girl are so mismatched they're perfect. Saying this is a girls' series is much too limiting: this is a series for anyone who enjoys a good laugh.

9 out of 10

Video and Presentation

The art fluctuates depending on what sort of mood it wants to set. The boys are sometimes drawn with immense colorful detail, from their long eyelashes to their pouting lips. (No wonder Sunako gets bad nosebleeds.) Sunako is often drawn as short, squat, and especially cartoonish, to show how low her self-esteem is. The differences in art don't ever feel choppy, just clever for expressing whatever needs to be expressed.

9 out of 10

Language and Audio The beautiful boys are introduced in a garden, with Baroque music playing as they languish in their beauty. Baroque music is perfect for them . . . and Sunako has her heavy goth sound to back her up.

There are two choices on how to watch: English 5.1 (there's very funny acting in this one) and Japanese 2.0 with English subtitles for those who prefer to watch it in the original language.

9 out of 10

Extra and Packaging

Clean opening animation, on-air opening for episodes 1-13, clean closing animation, previews for ADV anime series, and DVD credits. When you click to see the extras, it plays the heavenly background music used whenever the boys are especially beautiful. That's a fun gimmick.

7 out of 10

Bottom Line:

Hopefully the label "shojo" won't keep boys from watching this . . . it's hysterical and ought to be enjoyed by a wide audience!